Defense Sec. Austin: I Don’t See an Imminent Attack by China on Taiwan

COLLINS: “And Taiwan is, obviously, a major part of this. There are reports that the U.S. Is preparing to send more U.S. Military forces to Taiwan. Is that accurate?”

AUSTIN: “I won’t comment on troop deployments or operations or our training. What I will tell you, Kaitlan, is we remain committed to supporting Taiwan in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act, we will do everything we can to help them acquire the means to defend themselves.”

COLLINS: “The general who is the head of Air Mobility Command recently sent a memo out saying that China and the U.S. he believed to be at war two years from now. He said, quote, ‘My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.’ Is that true?”

AUSTIN: “What you heard me say in the past, and I’ll say it again today, is I don’t see an imminent attack by China on Taiwan and — but what you have to — you know, what we — we can talk about what we see, and what we see is increased activity by the Chinese in the Taiwan Strait. We have seen a number of center line crossings in the airspace. We have seen increased activity in the waters around Taiwan as China continues to try to intimidate Taiwan.”

COLLINS: “Given that, why do you not think an attack is imminent, given you’re seeing that increased activity.

AUSTIN: “There are a number of reasons that I won’t go into here, but I don’t think it’s in Xi’s best interest to attack Taiwan at this point in time. And you have to judge them by what you are seeing. Again, we are seeing increased activity. We got to make sure that we have — that we remain focused on this and we have the ability to deter China from making a bad decision. And we will have that — we have that capability now. We will continue to have that capability.”